Library Guides: Management & Marketing: Databases

Tips for Searching Databases

If you are doing company research, in many of our databases you can search by ticker symbol. To find a company's ticker symbol, you can google it or look it up in a database like Morningstar or Value Line Investment Survey.

Likewise, if you are doing industry research, in many of our databases you can search by industry codes such as a NAICS code.

Finally, just like searching for books, you should utilize keywords and boolean operators to search in databases.

NAICS
U.S. Census Bureau tool for using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Like knowing the ticker, knowing your company's NAICS code will help you locate industry and market information on library databases. You may have to try a few different keywords to find your NAICS code, for example, "Pest Management" won't return results but "Pest" and "Pest Control" will. I often will google "[Company Name] NAICS" to try to get a quick answer, but you should always check your results against the link here.
SIC Code
Search the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system from OSHA.gov by keyword to find the SIC code that classifies your industry. SIC codes are still used in some databases and reference sources, but the system is no longer being updated.